The ‘Evolution and Theology of Cooperation’ research project at
Harvard University was a three-year interdisciplinary undertaking formed to
discuss the implications of the evolutionary phenomenon of ‘cooperation’ for the understanding of the
relation of the evolutionary processes and classic theism(s). Given that ‘cooperation’ is now seen to
be a ‘natural’ phenomenon, how does this fact cause us to rethink the basic metaphors of Darwinian
theory, and how does it relate to the emergence, in cultural evolution, of various theories of ethical
normativity, including those that appeal to ‘divine command’? How are traditional arguments for the
existence of God to be re-thought in the light of game theory’s explication of the emergence of
‘cooperation’? And how is ‘cooperation’ to be defined analytically, and distinguished from closely-related
terms such as ‘altruism’, ‘love’, and ‘self-sacrifice’? Can all these phenomena be regarded as
‘evolutionary’ developments, and if so in what sense?

In addition to tackling these particular questions, the research project aimed, more generally, to lay
out a set of logical alternatives for viewing the relation of God and the evolutionary process. It thus
intended to complexify the disjunctive choice, as currently represented in the public media, between
secular Darwinism on the one hand, and fundamentalism on the other.